BRAVE NEW WORLD

Unveiling a grand defense industrial strategy, the British government is signaling that the Joint Strike Fighter will be its last manned combat aircraft and that it will launch an unmanned combat air vehicle technology demonstrator in 2006.

The government's defense industrial strategy (DIS), announced last week, will determine the shape of the U.K.'s defense industry for decades to come, as well as the government's relationships with U.S. and European companies. The strategy is aimed at keeping BAE Systems as the country's national champion. The document is the first time a British government has attempted to spell out its policy in this arena, and is intended to address radically changing requirements in an evolving defense market.

The document flushes out previously classified unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) research, committing the ministry to launch a full-scale technology demonstrator next year. The UCAV effort is a key element of the approach to air systems enshrined in the policy paper (see www.mod.uk).

The DIS is an attempt to fill the void that has until now been British defense industrial policy, across the air, land and naval sectors. Had the drift continued, BAE Systems now admits the company would have wound down its efforts in the U.K. to focus even more on the U.S.

"If we didn't have the DIS and our profitability and the terms of trade had stayed as they were . . . then there had to be a question mark about our future in the U.K.," admits BAE Chief Executive Mike Turner. While the BAE board has yet to study the full document in detail, Turner suggests BAE is "here to stay."

Turner has vociferously urged the government to provide a long-term defense-industrial road map. Paul Drayson, the British minister for defense procurement, has done just that. "It's an interesting and generously comprehensive document," says Keith Hayward, head of research at the London-based Royal Aeronautical Society. "BAE comes out very well . . . the company is effectively embedded as the U.K. national champion."

The UCAV work will build on formerly classified BAE programs such as Corax ("Raven") and Herti, both of which have been flown. The technology demonstrator is a crucial element in sustaining the air systems sector. Beyond the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA)--as the U.K. refers to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter--"current plans do not envisage the U.K. needing to design and build a future generation of manned, fast jet aircraft beyond these types," states the strategy document.

To offset the long-term impact of this, both in terms of the manufacturing base and capability retention, the government argues: "The focus must shift to through-life support and upgrade and what is required to sustain this critical capability in the absence of large-scale manufacturing."

THIS IS NOT JUST AN ISSUE for the U.K., "it applies to the rest of Europe and even to the U.S.," states the report. The government wants to ensure that the U.K. maintain "the core industrial skills required to contribute to any future international manned, fast jet program, should the requirement for one emerge." Hayward suggests, "For anybody associated with fixed-wing fast jet production, the long-term future appears bleak."